


Victim

by Metronomeblue



Series: Grey Sanctuary [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Banning is officially The Worst, Caitlyn is strong as fuck, Disabled Character, F/M, Gen, Lucille is a lovely name, Negan Being Negan, Negan is an unhappy bunny, Negan is very much against rape, Rape, Rape Recovery, Sarah is a good sister and she'll eat you alive, Simon is not The Worst, Swearing, The second part is the payoff, Torture, Very graphic, and he'll get what's coming to him, it's the part I really want to write, that is an important thing in this story, they bond, this is awful, this is it in its whole terrible glory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8572150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: a prequel to confidante- The Oliver Banning/Wellspring Incident and what follows. Caitlyn comes to Sanctuary, Banning is a monster, and Negan loses his fucking mind for five minutes.





	1. violent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: Caitlyn doesn't know that all the Saviors pull the "I'm Negan" crap, so the man she thinks is Negan is actually Banning. Just saying, because she calls him Negan the whole time. Negan is unhappy about this misunderstanding. Very unhappy.

Caitlyn Walker woke up in a pile of rotting leaves with her sister’s hair in her mouth. Not an auspicious beginning to the day.

“Sarah.” She pushed her sister, who continued to lay all over like a possessed starfish. “Sarah Walker you’d best get your ass off me before I stab you,” she whispered into what she thought was her ear.

“Why are you so violent?” Sarah complained sleepily, rolling off of her sister, who let out a truly massive sigh of relief.

“Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, the world has ended,” she said with some satisfaction, checking her knives and sliding them into their sheathes. “Violence is kind of a basic survival skill these days.” She stood, pulling her still-drowsy sister with her.

“Hey guys,” Matt called, poking the long-cold embers of their fire. Caitlyn waved and Sarah made sleep noises. Matt was always up first, almost always exactly at dawn. It freaked Sarah out, but Caitlyn found it comforting- constancy was hard to find these days. She almost missed the morgue. Looking around for walkers, she amended that statement. Maybe not.

Diana looked up, eyes narrowed and hand straying to her dagger. “You guys hear that?” She asked suspiciously, rising from her crouch. Matt followed suit, eyes darting back and forth. Sarah held her arms closer to her chest.

Caitlyn drew two blades and faced the group emerging from the woods around them.

“I sure as shit do now,” Matt muttered, raising his hands in a somewhat surrender. The men laughed.

“I like you,” the one in front grinned. “You’re cute.” Matt paled and Sarah stepped in front of him, glaring furiously.

“Not you,” he drawled, using the barrel of his gun to point at Caitlyn. “You really think you can do anything against us?”

“I could try,” she replied icily, tracking their movements in her peripheral vision. She adjusted her grip on the knives. “Who are you?”

“We’re the Saviors,” one of the smug ones said, cowing a little under the gaze of his leader. Caitlyn wasn’t impressed. Pale hair, pale eyes. He looked like a ghost.

“I’m Negan,” he said, a violent smile cracking his white face.

“Good for you, buddy,” Sarah snarked, faking a saccharine smile. “And we care… Why?”

“Because you’ve got three choices now, sweetheart,” he threatened giddily. “You can come with me and join our Sanctuary, you can join another settlement and provide for us, or you can all die right here- right now.” The other three looked to Caitlyn, whose eyes were narrowed and calculating.

If she was being honest, they needed help. Harriet and Langton had both been bitten back in Belmont. Therese had been shot by Friedrichs in Josephsville. They had nowhere else to be, nobody else to care about. They were isolated. But in a community… As a part of something, they could live. They could really live. Caitlyn tilted her head and sheathed her knives.

“I guess we’re going to a Sanctuary, then,” she grinned back at him, lips tight and eyes sharp. Negan laughed.

“Damn right,” he said, and turned away to his own group. “We’re making camp here!”

So they did. Caitlyn watched as they set up tents and another fire, and she sat heavily next to Sarah. Her sister looked at her, nervous and unsure, and Caitlyn grasped her hand. “We’ll be okay,” she promised.

She was half right.

Later that night, Caitlyn was seated between Sarah and a nervous Savior named Theo, who she was discussing Vonnegut with, when Negan called her out of the fire’s light.

“I need to talk to you,” he slid a hand down her arm to hold her firmly. “Alone.” Caitlyn was disgusted. She thought about what she’d do to him as he dragged her further out into the darkness, how she’d ever so carefully pick each vertebrae from his skeleton, how she’d pull every rib from his chest- one at a time, that was the way. Slowly. His grip on her arm didn’t weaken, and she calmed herself. If she fought, he’d only hurt Sarah. He’d hurt Matt and Diana. They were all under his power. All in his hands. Her hands, for that matter.

So she didn’t fight him. She let him push her to her knees in the rotting leaves, in the darkness. She let him unzip his pants and pull himself out. She let him pry open her jaw in the cold night air and force himself into her mouth. She didn’t fight him when he thrust deeper and deeper down her throat, just thought about Sarah, and how she was keeping her sister safe. She didn’t fight him when he grasped her hair and pulled her head so hard there were tears in her eyes. She didn’t fight when his spilled his come down her throat and forced her to swallow it. She let him do this, because she knew one day she’d watch him die.

Because she knew she wouldn’t have to watch Sarah die, or Matt or Di. She’d do as he told until they were at the Sanctuary. She’d wait until they wouldn’t be the only suspects. She’d bide her time- she had enough, for this.

They reached the Sanctuary the next day, and the Saviors quickly occupied Matt and Di with unloading boxes of what Caitlyn could only assume were supplies. Sarah was quickly tasked with laundry and sewing, which she was practically giddy about. She was damn near laughing when they showed her a room full of thread and needles and fabric. Caitlyn shook her head, avoiding Negan’s gaze as best she could.

“Where is he?” Negan asked another man, striding out from the long building in the middle of the settlement. The other man, whose mustache looked as if it had a life of its own, shook his head and started giving directions.

“Still out on a run,” he replied, making frankly obscene gestures at one of the other men. “Be back tomorrow.” At this, Negan turned to look at Caitlyn, and a chill ran up her spine. She reminded herself that there were others here now, others who could keep her family safe. If she acted on her own now, if she stabbed him in the eye or worse, none of the others would have to suffer for it. She breathed in and out, a strangely large amount of effort in each breath.

Caitlyn was jittery and nervous for the rest of the day, while she was moving boxes, while she was sharpening knives, while she was helping harvest the crops growing in neat rows down one side of the compound. She could feel Negan’s eyes on her, every second of the day. She wanted to scream, but she knew she couldn’t.

“What’s her problem?” Simon asked Banning, who had come back from his last run with a group of new recruits and a shit eating grin even Negan might be jealous of. Banning smirked, and shrugged unconvincingly.

“No clue,” he brushed it off. Simon rolled his eyes. Shouldn’t have expected a straight answer from the resident ghoul. After what Banning had done to gain his stripes as one of Negan’s lieutenants, even Simon was genuinely unnerved by the man. He’d never look at tiled floors the same way.

That night was the worst. After dark fell, Negan showed up to take Caitlyn to the edge of the compound- there was a small grove of trees which hid them from anyone in the main compound, and even from anyone around them. Caitlyn was becoming more nauseous by the minute. His grip on her arm was leaving bruises, and she felt like she was going to fall to her knees any moment, regardless of whether he wanted her there or not. She could still taste the bitterness, the unclean feeling of him forcing himself into her mouth. The world seemed further and further away.

“You listening, whore?” Negan broke into her thoughts roughly, grabbing her by the neck. “You’d better listen to me, because-” Caitlyn kicked him between the legs, then shot out with a sharp knee to his chest when he dropped. She ran- she ran fast, but he was taller and caught her, pushing her to the ground. “You’re going to regret that, you bitch,” he hissed into her face. She knew she was. She had that feeling.

She was surprised when he pulled out the gun, though. She was winded now, struggling on the ground as he stood over her. The gun trembled in his hand, but the silencer brought a pang of dread to her sinking stomach. He was prepared. He wasn’t going to let anyone hear what he was about to do. She struggled harder, but the soft sound and the sharp, agonizing pain in her knee stopped her dead. Then, with a vile grin, he shot her other kneecap, and the short, low scream she let loose made him smile wider. “That’s it, sweetheart, scream for me.”

Caitlyn wanted to fight. She wanted to scream and bite and claw at his face until he bled to death, but she was in so much pain. Her legs were like fire, and she could feel the blood soaking into her clothes. She was crying. She felt weak, but she couldn’t fight her own body anymore. She couldn’t fight him, either, when he knelt over her on the cold ground, gun in hand and smile wide and heartless. “Look at that, sweetheart,” he said, sipping a finger into the bullet hole in her knee, ignoring her weak cries as she thrashed uselessly on the ground. “You’re all wet for me,” he said, licking her blood off of his finger. “Mmmm. Tastes like useless whore.” She kicked out at him, or tried. Her legs barely twitched. He laid a hand heavily on one of her calves, and she groaned. He smiled even wider, spreading her legs as far as he could.

“Well damn,” he laughed, cutting into her pants with a knife, stripping them off of her like a hunter flaying his kill. “Who knew you were such an eager slut, sweetheart? I mean really,” he ran a hand up the inside of one of her thighs, cupping her in his hand as she tried, in effectively, to jerk away from his touch. “You’ve got a cunt like a river.” She screamed again, in frustration and impotent fury, but her voice was so spent it came out quiet.

“Oh, come now sweetheart,” he chided her, slipping his blade under her shirt and splitting it where the buttons were. As it came closer to her face, she realized, with a pang of horror, that it was her knife he was using. The very same that she’d carried for years. The one that had saved her life more times than not. And he was using it to violate her in every way he could. “Don’t be too eager. We don’t want to wake everyone up, now do we?” She panted and cried, trying to turn her face away, but her grasped her face and forced her to meet his eyes. “You’re mine, sweetheart,” he said, and this time there was no false joy, no fake concern. There was nothing but cold greed. She wept more fiercely, twitching away from him when he ever-so-gently ran the knife over her breast, just over where her nipple rose, hard in the cold and the fear. He bent, snapping the strap and pulling it down to bite at her breast. She hated him. Severely, deeply, she hated him.

He did the same for her other breast, exposing it and marking it with his teeth. Like an animal. Like one of the dead. But he wasn’t done yet. He drew her knife down, tracing its top over her stomach, over her hips, down to the crux of her entrance. He dragged it down between her lips, just enough to scratch, just enough to burn when he rested it against her clit.

“No,” she spat, through blood and fear and despair. “No.”

“Oh sweetheart,” he laughed, dropping the knife to undo his belt buckle, a savage glee in his eyes. “You don’t have a say in this.” He knelt over her once more, knees spread to either side of her, and she tried in vain to drift away, to ignore his cold hands on her skin, to ignore the heated head of his cock pushing up against her. “You don’t get any day at all,” he hissed, fucking into her hard, uncaring of her screams.

That was bad. It wasn’t the worst, though. He had her all night, after all. He had her long enough to fuck her several times in a growing pool of her own blood, which he spent his time in between making larger. He started with blunt force- he broke her legs below the knee in what must have been three places in each leg. “Can’t break the parts I need spread for fucking, can I?” He’d joked after breaking them for the first time. “Need those thighs to spread, sweetheart.” He moved on to her knife. He sliced her up, thin lines and thick, short and small and long, twisting ribbons of blood up to her shattered knees.

She stopped being able to make noise after the second time he broke her legs, and everything after she just cried through. The other rapes, the cutting, the moment when he carved letters into the space between her breasts. She was so far gone between the shock, the trauma, the blood loss, she didn’t even know what they were. When the sun began to rise, he zipped himself back into his pants.

“Well sweetheart,” he said winningly, with that cold grin. “It was nice fucking you.” And then he walked back to the compound, leaving her spread out in the dirt, his come wet and cold all over her bared, bloody skin. She drifted off then, drifted so far away she didn’t hear the screams when they found her, or the concerned murmurs from Simon and the others, didn’t hear Sarah’s panicked screaming, Matt’s choked breathing.

She didn’t hear a damn thing until halfway through the day. Not until they woke her up to bring her to Negan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go away. Have some chocolate or something. Recover. Tomorrow I'm writing the better half- the revenge and recovery half. That'll be up soon.


	2. vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where Negan loses his mind for five minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the last chapter was harsh, but this one not so much. I really enjoyed writing this. Guess who's having fun? It's me. I haven't written this much, this quickly in ages.

Simon was having something between an aneurysm and a panic attack. Rape wasn’t something that happened at Sanctuary. It just wasn’t. Negan was deadline fucking serious about that, and it wasn’t something they’d ever had to deal with until now. But now, one of the new girls was in the infirmary, split open and bleeding all over and so obviously a rape victim they didn’t know how to treat her.

“How is she?” He asked one of the doctors- Langley, he thought her name was.

“She’ll be fine, physically, with some time. It’s her head in worried about.” She ripped a length of bandages in half and began wrapping one of the girl’s already splinted and cleaned legs. “Sexual assault isn’t something we’re necessarily equipped to deal with.” She placed a small pad of cloth over one particularly deep wound on the girl’s calf. “The trauma may be too much for her. Something this violent, this brutal. It won’t go easy.” Simon cursed and shook his head, feeling a little sick.

“Negan’s gonna lose it when he finds out.” He was asking for help, he knew. Something the doctor could say that would make this not entirely his fault.

“As well he should,” she replied, tying off the bandage. “How did you miss this?” He shook his head again.

“I just wasn’t looking hard enough, I guess.” The doctor remained unimpressed.

“That’s not good enough,” she advised him. “Start looking harder- he’ll find it much harder to blame you if you’re as upset about it as he is.”

“I am,” he said, and he knew it wasn’t quite true. It would be awfully hard to be that upset. He heard the hum and roar of trucks pulling into the main lot, and he sighed at the signal. Negan was back, and he’d brought the rest of the men with him. “He’ll want to talk to her when she wakes up,” he warned the doctor, who just nodded and kept tending to the girl’s wounds.

“Sir,” he called, getting Negan’s attention over the whispers and clamor of the crowd greeting friends and family and spreading the news. “There’s something you’re gonna want to know.”

“What happened?” He asked, one hand gripping Lucille even more tightly, knuckles almost white over the wood.

“Banning brought in a group. Three women, one man. Last night… Well, they found her in the Wellspring grove.” Negan’s brow furrowed, eyes narrowed.

“She dead?” There was something strange in Negan’s voice, halfway between sadness and regret. That bright tone was still there, some illusion to keep up the pretense that he didn’t give a fuck. It was unfamiliar to Simon, but it still rang true with what he felt, himself. He shook his head, the image of the poor girl strewn over the ground, bloody and torn apart, coming the forefront of his mind.

“No,” he began, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “But right about now, I’m betting she wishes she was.” Negan grew more grave, the muscle in his jaw ticking, and Simon shook his head. “You’re gonna want to talk to her.”

“Yeah,” Negan nodded, terse and contemplative. He swung Lucille lazily by his thigh and shot a vicious smile at Simon. “Yeah, I am.”

Caitlyn woke to an unexpected warmth, and aches she half-remembered. When she saw a hand reach out to smooth her hair back, she rose up to catch it, nails digging into the soft flesh beneath the wrist. “It’s just me,” Sarah said quietly, not moving. “You’re safe, Caity. It’s just me.” Slowly, Caitlyn released her sister, slumping back into the pillow and pressing her eyes closed at the sudden flares of pain in her legs, her chest… In her everything, if she was being honest. “Caity?” Sarah asked, no longer reaching out, but having moved closer to the bed.

“Her name’s Caitlyn?” An unfamiliar voice asked, and Caitlyn immediately tried to sit up, to ready herself to fight whoever the unknown was. Instead, Sarah pressed gently at her shoulder, and the man came into view. He of the impressive mustache, Caitlyn recognized, and fell back once more.

“Caitlyn Walker,” Sarah confirmed for her. “My sister,” and there was an edge there, protective and harsh.

“You know who did this to you?” He asked, gruffly but kindly, and Caitlyn felt something instinctive tell her this was fine. She nodded, slowly, warily.

“Said his name was Negan,” she rasped out, her voice still burning with all her screams. Mustache man looked taken aback.

“Couldn’t have been,” he said, looking at once both firmly unsettled and somehow certain. “Negan would never. Beyond that, he only got back an hour ago. He was in Hilltop, til now. Gathering supplies.” Caitlyn raised an eyebrow.

“Cause we’re just going to believe you,” Sarah snorted. Mustache man shrugged.

“He’s gonna want to talk with you anyway. Tomorrow, probably. He’s in charge, Negan is. The real king around here.” Caitlyn shook her head, looking frankly sickened. Simon shrugged again. “I am sorry,” he said, carefully, making no move to touch her as he stood. “This is nothing we condone in Sanctuary.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Caitlyn rasped, eyes narrowed and fixed on him as he left.

True to his word, mustache man (whose name she learned was Simon), picked her up at around ten thirty the next day and took her to an office in the compound. It was neat, if a little crowded. There were all kinds of strange things strewn about, sports equipment and knives and papers, but each arranged as if thy had been carefully set down where they were.

“This is Negan’s office,” Simon informed her, and a sharp thrill of fear and panic spiked through her. Simon, who had enlisted another Savior to carry her (literally) out of the infirmary, turned to find her punching the man carrying her in the face and bodily dragging herself into the corner farthest from the door. Naturally, this was the moment Negan chose to walk in. He took one look at the trembling girl with blood beginning to seep through he bandages, and shooed the other two out.

“Hey, sweetheart, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said, kneeling down a foot or two away from her. She looked up just long enough to glare at him.

“Don’t call me that,” she said evenly, voice dead calm. He raised his hands as if in surrender.

“Whatever you say, darlin’,” he said, cracking a slight smile. “Is that alright? Can I call you darlin?” She rolled her eyes, absentmindedly pulling one leg closer with both hands.

“I guess,” she said, voice still quiet, still calm. “You’re not him.” Negan nodded, dead serious now, even if that smile still split his face.

“No, I sure as shit am not.” He looked her in the eye, then, saw the calculation, the sharpness there. She followed his every movement keenly, but there was still a touch of fear there.

“He said his name was Negan.” It was a question, no matter how she said it, and the answer was in the way he looked away and clenched his fists.

“I’m Negan. He ain’t.” He looked back at her, and her unwavering, cold gaze. “And I need you to help me figure out who the fuck he really is. I need you to help me find the fucking depraved bastard who decided it was fucking A-okay for him to break one of my only fucking rules while I was gone.” She raised an eyebrow, and he privately marveled at her ability to look absolutely in control and terrifying while shivering in a corner and bleeding.

“Rules?” She asked. He shrugged.

“I don’t hold with rape, darlin.” He scratched at the stubble on his chin, then, looking at the floor. “And I’m getting the feeling that’s what he did to you.”

“Yeah,” she said evenly. “In between making me fear for my life and crippling me, yeah, he raped me.” She tilted her head then, searching his eyes with something like scorn. “I wonder which part you’ll actually punish him for.”

Negan reached out, then, giving her a moment to flinch away before stroking two fingers down the side of her face with unexpected gentleness. “All of it,” he said hoarsely, rage and regret and fury burning in him. She nodded, reaching up to catch his hand in her own.

“Good,” she said quietly. She traced a soft fingertip over the calluses on his palm before releasing his hand. “Good.”

She spent the rest of her time that day on talking to Di and Simon, who assured her that what was going to happen that night would settle the whole matter. Di spent a few hours filling her in on how life in Sanctuary worked, and how she’d been quickly promoted based on her marksmanship and quick thinking. Simon smiled and joked she was better than half his men, but the joke rang true in the way he looked at her. Simon, likewise, answered all her questions regarding Negan and the rules of the settlement. They reached a point of contention when he mentioned Negan’s wives.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said flatly. “He can’t just make these girls marry him. How is that any better than what happened to me?” Simon looked increasingly offended, but understood enough about her to explain rather than react.

“He makes ‘em an offer, and they can decline it any which way they like. Sherry said yes to save Dwight, and that was her choice. Far as I know she and Negan only slept together the once,” he looked up, thinking. “Grace said yes because she liked him, and so did Anna. Helena said yes because she wanted to know about everything, Jenna said yes because she wanted to stay close to April, who said yes because she wanted to save Maura, who was her girlfriend, I think? There are a lot of 'em these days,” he shrugged. “It ain’t always about sex, y'know. Helena, I know, has never slept with him, and neither has Jenna. Erin said yes because she never wanted to sleep with anyone. They’re drinking buddies, as far as I know.” That alone gave Caitlyn a lot to process, but then Sarah came around to tell her about how she was in charge of all clothing repairs and began babbling about thimbles and every color of thread in the world. Di rolled her eyes and collapsed across the end of Caitlyn’s bed as if to sleep through the whole thing. Simon mumbled an excuse and left hurriedly.

That night, everyone in Sanctuary gathered in a courtyard- it was barely large enough for all of them, and the proximity to the grove where she’d been attacked made Caitlyn’s hands itch for a knife. But it was a good place to bring everyone out. Simon had helped Matt and Sarah bring her out of the infirmary, and now she was sat on a rock between them, with Simon standing over their shoulders and glaring at everyone who passed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Negan called- the real Negan, dressed for war in a black jacket and gloves- a red scarf like blood burning itself into her eyes. Caitlyn was beginning to understand that this Negan- the real Negan, was in his element here, an audience and a purpose and blood scenting the air. “We’re here to teach a fucking lesson, today.” The murmurs, which hadn’t abated since Caitlyn was found the day before, grew. “We’re here to show every fucking one of you exactly what happens when you break the fucking rules.” He jumped up on a raised platform in the middle of the crowd, bat in hand and began turning in a circle, making sure to give everyone a look. He met Caitlyn’s eyes and gave a her a nod. “We are here tonight, as one big, happy fucking family, to talk about what you get when you break the one fucking basic rule I made damn fucking sure you all understood. One of you,” he said, turning again, looking for guilt. “Raped and tortured a newcomer- someone who willingly came to our fucking Sanctuary looking for a new fucking life. She came in those gates trusting that she’d be fucking safe here, and you made good goddamn sure she wouldn’t be.” Negan paused, looking to Caitlyn with something like pride. “But you couldn’t fucking kill her, could you? Cause that girl,” he said, with an enthusiastic, almost awed smile, pointing at Caitlyn. “That girl’s made of cold, hard, fucking steel.” Caitlyn, who’d been scanning the crowd herself, spotted the man who she’d once known as Negan. “And so I’m here to make damn sure you get what you fucking deserve.” When she next met the gaze of the man himself, she pointed.

Negan turned, as did most of the crowd, to fix their eyes upon the blond, who it gradually dawned upon that the whole world had just become set against him. He turned, as if to run, but the men on either side of him had set upon him already and dragged him to the center of the crowd, to lie, disheveled and fearful, at Negan’s feet.

“Well, if it isn’t fucking Oliver Banning,” Negan said slowly, walking around to face Banning. “What do you have to say for yourself, huh?” Banning didn’t answer, still trying to stand. Negan tapped him forcefully with the end of his bat. “I said, what do you have to say for yourself?” The blond coughed, and Negan kicked him savagely in the ribs. The next time he coughed, blood spattered the stone beneath him. “What, huh? What the fuck could you possibly say to me?”

Banning coughed again, blood dripping eerily from his chin and teeth, staining his pale mouth a nightmarish red. He smiled, still coughing, and grinned savagely up at Negan. “All I have to say is that her whore cunt tasted even sweeter than her blood did, and that she loved every second of it.” Negan’s eyes narrowed, his face setting like stone into a cold, blank mask. He nodded at Banning.

“That’s all you have to say?” He asked quietly, voice almost soft. “That’s all you have to say for yourself after raping this woman, fucking crippling her, goddamn torturing her in ways that will haunt her for years to fucking come? That’s all you have to say for yourself after doing it in my fucking name? That’s all you have to say for yourself after breaking my fucking rules?” He grinned, kicking Banning over to lie on his back. “Then I think I know what I have to say in return.” There was a strange feeling in the air, hot breath steaming up from Banning’s mouth and Negan’s. An anticipation, building.

Caitlyn didn’t know how to feel, watching Negan address Banning in front of everyone. It was a positive feeling, she knew, but it wasn’t anything she’d ever felt before. At one point, somewhere between knocking Banning onto his back and making a final judgement, he met her eyes. She wanted to thank him, to impress upon him how glad she was and how ridiculous it felt that a thieving group of post-apocalyptic marauders had a better handle on how to treat rapists than a fully civilized America. Instead she nodded at him, an understanding passing between them- that they both needed this.

“Batter motherfuckin up!” Negan said, smiling viciously down at Banning as he leveled the first strike at his skull. Banning rose a little, trying to escape, but he was quickly pushed back down by the sheer force of the strike. And again, Negan crushed his skull- over and over, until there was nothing left but a body and some red debris. Negan straightened up, bright blood spattered over his face. Caitlyn had never thought watching someone die could be comforting, but this was. He was gone. She shivered, though she wasn’t cold. He could never hurt her again.

The crowd was silent for a moment, some praying for the loss of life, others considering their own choices, and others simply taking a moment to appreciate the carnage, and what it meant for the woman he’d hurt. Caitlyn got Sarah and Matt to walk her down to Negan, who was still standing over Banning’s dead body, a look in his eye that escaped classification. Just as they reached him, he glanced at Caitlyn and wiped a hand over his face, spreading the blood into a bright streak. She opened her mouth to speak to him, but he sighed and turned to walk away.

Sarah, Matt and Simon walked her back to the infirmary, where Doctor Langley clucked over her wounds and chastised her for not taking proper care. Caitlyn wasn’t exactly sure how to tell her that taking care wasn’t exactly her first priority when being dragged out to see her attacker be made a public spectacle and then killed. Instead she shrugged and agreed.

She woke three days later to find Negan, looking both incredibly sheepish and very shocked, halfway through pushing a wheelchair into her room. “Oh I’m sorry,” she snorted, sitting up as best she could. “Was this meant to be a surprise?” Negan shrugged, and shot her a grin.

“It’s not every day we find on of these, much less have someone who could use it,” he said, leaning on the wheelchair with what she was almost certain was fake nonchalance. “Figured you’ll need a way of getting around if you’re going to stay.” He peered down at her then, while still avoiding her eyes. She cracked a soft smile of her own.

“Thank you,” she said, something between gratitude and fond exasperation flooding her voice. He grinned and nodded again in acknowledgement. “For what you did to Banning, too,” she said evenly as he turned to walk away. “Thank you for that.” He froze, and turned back to her.

“Don’t say his name, darlin’.” He said it quietly, with some cold fury still gripping his tone. “He doesn’t deserve that.” There was a moment, quiet and peaceful, between them, where nothing happened except they were alive and nothing was said except in their heads. He turned back, and there was something vacant and sad in his eyes when he looked at her. For a soft moment, she had considered his feelings for her to be strong, even to the point she thought he might care for her. Now, though, seeing the edge of despair in his eyes, she knew better. So she let go of another hopeless dream.

“Goodnight,” she said, finally, because it was all she could say. His face lit up again with that smile, something almost entirely too pleased flickering in his dark eyes. She smiled back, and he looked down at the wheelchair, tapping it’s back, before letting it go and turning.

“Sweet dreams, darlin’.” He replied, melting into the darkness. She nodded, and drifted off still staring at the wheelchair. Her wheelchair.

The next morning, she wheeled herself out to say goodbye. Negan was leading another supply run- the last of the month- and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. She wanted to say goodbye, to Matt and Di, who were both going, but also to the man who had helped her in a place where she believed help wasn’t forthcoming. She wanted to establish that this tentative friendship mattered to her, that she wasn’t going to let go just because she knew now he would never love her. She wasn’t that kind of person.

“I didn’t come out here to watch you argue,” she called out, wheeling herself down the road to where the two men were looking up at her. “In fact, I think that’s the last possible reason I’d ever come down here.” Negan cracked a brilliant grin, and Simon made a frustrated noise, storming away to oversee the few people Di wasn’t already browbeating.

“Well then, darlin’, why did you come all the way down here?” He asked, but the glimmer in his eye told her he probably already had a suspicion. She smiled back, wheeling herself just forward enough to be knee-to-knee with him. She gestured for him to bend down, and he obliged, somewhat bemused.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his stubbled cheek. “And good luck.” He straightened with a curious expression on his face. “Don’t die, okay?” She asked, only half joking. “I only have like, four friends around here, and one of them’s related to me.” He laughed then, and nodded.

“Alright, darlin, I promise I’ll do my best.” They smiled at each other for a moment more, before he broke away to direct Simon and Di, glancing back at her even then. She watched him go.

“Be safe,” she whispered, to herself or to him she didn’t know. “Please be safe.” And then, looking over her shoulder every few seconds, she made her way back up the hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So anyway, I love Caitlyn, and I love Negan and I'm going to add more to this series. It's just too much fun for me.


End file.
